India Carrier Codes

Tracking down landline and mobile phone numbers in Indore and throughout India can be a major pain because most phone numbers aren't published in phone directories.

If you've had no luck using the existing Indore online phone directories, then perhaps the best you can do is simply to know which telephone carrier issued a given phone number. Even this is may not be easy.

Dialing Codes for India Landline Carriers

In India, landline subscriber numbers have generally been assigned in large blocks to specific telephone carriers. This can be helpful if you are trying to track down what carrier handles a certain phone number.

Here are the starting digits for landline subscriber numbers assigned to the leading fixed line carriers:

To clarify, 'starting digits' refers to the first digit used in the local subscriber number - the part of the number after the STD code (aka area code). Local numbers can be 6-, 7-, or 8-digits long.

If your Indore local number is a 7-digit number starting with any of the above, you can be sure it is a landline number from whichever company. You also know that you need to add '731' before it for inbound international calling.

Reverse lookup: If you are trying to do a reverse lookup of an Indore landline phone number, please note that the only carriers that support reverse lookup are BSNL and MTNL. Click here for links to the BSNL and MTNL online phone directories.

Notes

+ Company has been assigned the complete series of 'x' numbers. Meaning all local subscribers numbers starting with that digit were issued by the named company. If not so designated, then the company has been issued some, but not all, numbers in that series.

* Company has been assigned these numbers, but has not yet launched landline services. Based on new thinking by the India telecom regulators, the company may be assigned a new number group prior to launch in order to help maximize utilization of phone numbers.

Dialing Codes for India Mobile Carriers

Like landline phone numbers, mobile phone numbers are issued in blocks to carriers, but there are many more carriers and many, many more blocks.

For many years, all mobile phone numbers started with a '9x' code, but in late 2009, India also starting issuing mobile numbers in the '8x' series.

While all phone numbers starting with '9x' are reserved for mobile phones, not all numbers in the '8x' series are assigned to mobile phone. That's because many existing landline area codes start with '8x'.

There are at least 400 such existing 2-, 3-, or 4-digit '8x' area codes in use. For example, the Bangalore area code is '80'. And many locations in the Hyderabad area use 4-digit '8x' area codes, e.g., 8413 and 8415 are used for Hyderabad West and East, respectively.

Obviously, these existing codes cannot also be used for mobile numbers, so the newer '8x' mobile codes must be assigned around existing '8x' landline area codes. While rapid growth in mobile phone usage necessitates use of the '8x' series, it does mean that it is no longer so easy to tell mobile numbers from landline numbers.

In both the '9x' and '8x' series, all mobile phone numbers are issued in blocks starting with 4-digits. These 4-digit blocks are assigned to a particular company for use in a particular telecom circle.

For instance, the mobile code '9000' was issued to AirTel for use in the Andhra Pradesh telecom circle while the mobile code '9100' was assigned to Loop Mobile for Andhra Pradesh. The mobile code '9916' was issued to Vodafone for use in the Karnataka telecom circle. There are dozens such assignments of codes to companies and regions.

While most mobile numbers are issued code by code, three large blocks of '9x' numbers were issued to particular carriers as follows:

Each of these companies has also been assigned additional numbers in other '9x' and '8x' series. And their hold on the above blocks may not be permanent as regulators try to maximize utilization of all possible mobile numbers to cope with explosive mobile phone use.

Beyond these large blocks of numbers, most other mobile numbers are assigned in much smaller blocks at the level of a single 4-digit mobile code, such as '9909' - or possibly small groups of codes.

For detailed information on these assigned mobile codes, please visit these sources:

Also, there are many sites that allow you to do a partial reverse lookup of mobile phone numbers. By 'partial' we mean that they allow you to look up the 4-digit carrier code data discussed above. Unfortunately, they do not allow you to do a complete reverse lookup that identifies an individual subscriber by name and address.